Finance History | 11 Wall Street — An Irish Cement Book Moves Its Primary Tape

People treat CRH as a New York building-materials house that always printed CRH on the Big Board as its first tape.

The 2023 issuer was still an Irish public company. Its American depositary shares had traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 31 March 2006, after a transfer from Nasdaq.

A CRH announcement dated 25 September 2023 said the primary listing moved to the New York Stock Exchange that day. An Irish High Court scheme shifted settlement from Euroclear Bank to the Depositary Trust Company.

The London listing was cut from premium to standard. The Euronext Dublin line was cancelled. The American depositary programme was terminated and the ADSs converted into ordinary shares.

The company said North America then accounted for about 75 percent of group EBITDA. No new primary shares were sold.

The mechanism is a listing migration, not an offering. Holders who wanted the S&P 500 eligibility that a US primary listing can unlock took the DTC book.

CRH later said it would drop the remaining London line. The pin is the Broad Street facade of the Exchange, where the ordinary shares became the primary print. Interior trading is not visitable from the sidewalk.

Photo: Arild Vagen, August 2017, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. New York Stock Exchange from Broad Street.